


A String of Disastrous Incidents.

by BlueFloyd



Category: Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
Genre: Boarding School, But probably Esmé too, Change of narrator, If really there was nothing out there then what was that noise, Lemony is an elitist snob, Lemony to begin with, Olaf came from a poor family, Prequel, Unreliable Narrator, Vision For Diversity, class warfare, vfd
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-18
Updated: 2017-11-08
Packaged: 2018-08-31 17:20:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8587099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueFloyd/pseuds/BlueFloyd
Summary: Only an introduction so far, I'd like to see the events leading up to the schism and pretty much the whole story of VFD told from another POV than Lemony's, as he seems a bit too keen to paint his opponents as monsters with no morale whatsoever and poor corporal hygiene. But I'm not sure I'll have the inspiration/will/time (words that here mean "looking for an excuse not to follow up") to write it.





	1. Chapter 1

_To Olaf,  
Disguised, defamed, departed._

 

There was a group, and there was a schism, and there was a story. I was in the group, I lived through the schism and I read the story. It was thirteen books and it was wrong. It was all wrong.

See? I can do it too. I can write as pompously as this idiot of Snicket. I can use convoluted words to obscure the facts, "facts" being a word which here means what actually happened instead of what Lemony Snicket chose to write in order to appear more likable. But the world isn't one of Lemony's neat little telltale, with black and white morale. The world is a gray area, full of intertwined lives, complex schemes and people trying to protect their friends and families, with limited information and even more limited choices. No one is trying to kill orphans for the thrill of it, and nobody gives a shit about the damn sugar bowl, except for Lemony himself, unable to understand that this particular train has left the station a long time ago. I'll explain VFD to you, its schism and its power struggles, its sad little truths and its shiny obfuscations. It won't be pretty, it won't be simple, it won't even be the whole picture because I'm missing too much of it, but at least it won't be Lemony's. And that will be a start, as sure as my name is Esmé.


	2. Chapter 2

I remember well Olaf's first day at the Academy. A scrawny kid with wild eyes and second hand clothes, glancing distrustfully at everyone. He looked like a caged animal. He looked like me a year ago. Olaf and I were not your typical VFD kids. We were not born in money and power, heirs to one of the old VFD families. My parents had died in an industrial accident. Olaf's were still alive, but had no money to raise him. They were working part-time jobs at the Opera, his father was a janitor and his mother was holding the ticket booth. We had booth been co-opted in the "Vision For Diversity" program, offering VFD scholarships to outsider children, in order to bring more competences and points of view to VFD than those of distinguished lepidopterists. The initial intention was good, but it made for some lonely children. They were but a handful of us, and the other kids were not exactly keen to integrate us. I had blended in, studying and mimicking these upper-classes kids. I had changed my voice, my posture, my vocabulary, my references. It was clear from day one that Olaf would not follow this path. Over the years he proved time and time again that he was capable to, but at the academia he always refused to disguise who he was.

That's the reason why Lemony hated him so much. For not dressing properly. For swearing. For his use of violence other than symbolic (Lemony's position on the use of violence has quite changed since then). In short, for refusing to conform to upper classes values. This opposition only grew over the years and it became one of the many reasons leading VFD to the Schism. If Olaf and Lemony represented this opposition, it is actually the initiators of the Vision For Diversity program that are to "blame". Elitism and nepotism were in VFD DNA. Opening the academia to urchins was a nice thing to do but it silently initiated a massive change in the organization. Suddenly it was not just a rich boy's club sharing insider's information to enlarge their fortune and dabbling occasionally in philanthropy. Questions were asked, voices were raised, methods were questioned. And then the murders began.


	3. Volant Fire Departures 101

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where knowledge is passed upon.

« In many situations, fire can very well be your last hope. It as a polyvalency - a word which here means that it can be put about any use, a practicality and a uniqueness that make it vital that you know how to start a fire whatever the situation you're in. About to go into a dark cave that could contain about anything? Make a fire. Lost your thermostatic sleeping bag in a hasty escape, and the cold is setting in? Make a fire. Alone in an uncharted forest full of dangerous snakes? Make a fire. Need to make sure you can eat that animal you hunted without getting parasites? Make a fire. Want to signal yourselves to hypothetical passing planes while you're stranded on a desert island? Make a fire. I could go on and on. Fire is your number one tool, and you don't even need to remember to bring it with you. You can just create it whenever you need it. That is, you will be able to once we've reached the end of this course. Now, my aspiring Prometheus, form groups of two, and we will begin the first of our practical session. »

The Volant Fire Departures introductory speech is still vivid in my mind, after all these years. That the class was given by Abraham Antwhistle, a teacher I had a crush on, might have helped. Abraham was a lepidopterist, one who would stop at nothing to get a chance to study a new species of butterfly. The classes he gave at the Academia were rare, for he was usually halfway across the world, in the heart of a primary forest, leading a VFD exploratory mission. He was the world n°1 expert on two things : butterflies, and surviving into the wilderness. He had two sons, one of them in the promo before ours, one not yet of age to be schooled at the Academy, but there was little doubt that he too would hear noises outside his window that adults would dismiss as nothing.

I had hoped to team up with Olaf for the practical session, but as I moved across the room to reach him, I saw that he had already offered to Kit to be his partner. He had an interest in her, that was obvious. At the time I thought it was only a scheme to get on Lemony’s nerves. His sister getting along with the disgusting street boy! I should have been more careful, then. Olaf was spending most of his time with me, and I thought that was because he felt the same way about me that I felt about him, but it became obvious later that if he saw me as a friend and an ally, there was nothing more to it. But little did I know at the time. So I left Olaf with Kit, and scanned the room to find a suitable partner. I didn’t want to end up with Lemony’s or another of the idiots thinking that the course was a waste of our time. Lemony had been quite vocal about his opinion. He did not see the use of wilderness survival lessons. The real volunteering was to be done into cities, close to the centers of power, where volunteers could make a difference. Who cared about cataloging frogs when you could break into a ballroom, pretend to be an ambassador, introduce yourself to a duchess, and with meticulously crafted speeches, bring a war to an end, saving thousands of lives with your silver tongue? His words, pretty much.

Thankfully, I did not have to pair up with Lemony or another member of the "Vocals Finishing Devastation" faction. Monty was still partnerless. I had a crush on Abraham Antwhistle, but Monty downright worshiped him. He wanted to be an explorer himself and join one of Antwhistle’s expeditions. He drank every word from Abraham, had read all of his books several times and was probably able to pass the test with flying colors already. Only one little catch. I went to him, bracing myself mentally for way more information about snakes that I ever wanted to know. Of course, he had just finished reading a book about arctic snakes and started describing them to me. But to my pleasant surprise, he was passionate enough about the subject on the course to limit the amount of snake-talk. This day, we learned to make a fire with a plank and a rod, with flints, with a piece of glass, with a battery and cotton. We got to see Lemony declare with is usual emphasis that in civilized places matches and lighter were always accessible and that we should only learn to put fire out, and we got to see Abraham replies that if he wanted to get only half an education and was stupid enough to think a Voluntary Fire Department could do without knowledge of the ways to start, maintain, control and use a fire, he could walk out of the class at any moment he wanted and get a failing grade in one of the core courses, thank him very much. That was great. Olaf was obviously as thrilled as me, and even Kit rolled her eyes while Lemony was ranting.

At the end of the class, I saw Olaf staying to talk with Abraham. He was not the only student to do so. But he later told me that while any other student was there to talk about jungle expeditions and fauna, he was there to talk about fire conservation and kindling dispositions. Abraham’s speech had struck a chord in him. Olaf had known winter nights without a source of warmth. He saw the direct use of knowing how to make a fire last longer. It was the first time he considered that the Academy could actually offer him something. The beginning of Olaf taking a role into VFD, rather than being a passive spectator, here for the hot meals and the bed. It seemed insignificant at the time, these small interactions and displays of power and positions between students. And yet, it outlined the shape of things to come, a repetition of the play we would stage time after time, with our roles assigned to us from this very beginning.


	4. Of Nature and Culture, of Revolution and Status Quo

I was separated from Olaf for our fifth and final year at the Academy. It was my doing. An act of defiance against him, one of the few I took, and one I would regret. Olaf had volunteered to join an expedition on the high seas. A tanker carrying huge quantities of octopus ink had fallen prey to a storm, and had sunk. The dark and indelible ink was staining the sea across kilometers. Abraham Antwhistle had mounted an expedition to try and fight the pollution with an experimental technique: In Situ Burning. The idea was that the ink was hard to collect from the sea, but you could burn it on place. The products of the combustion would be less damaging for the environment. The technique was risky but promising, so of course Olaf **had** to be there. He tried to talked me into joining the crew, but I declined. He used his crooked smile and all of his tricks, but I stood my ground. My previous expedition into the wild with him had been a total disaster: I was bitten by every living insect, drenched to the bones, had to sleep on bare rocks, and all the while witness Olaf and Kit Snicket kissing each other for all they could.

I certainly did not want to reiterate the experience. Plus, I had the opportunity to do my fifth year internship under Meredith Medici, the famous banker running Mulctuary Money Management and the world best specialist on financial derivatives. I had found my interest in finance by then, and the idea to be able to stay in the heart of the City, to work right by the statue of Triumphing Finance, to go to fashion shows and theater plays at the end of the day seemed like everything I wanted. I would be able to craft my network of associates in VFD and outside of it, to achieve a position of power and financial security. It was perfect, and certainly beat being on an isolated boat, living for half a year with only 10 other people around, 1 of them being Kit Snicket wrapped like poison ivy around Olaf. So I chose finance.

 

Kit ended up not going on this cruise. I could have had Olaf. Half a year with me, I’m certain I would have been able to make him forget Kit altogether. Instead, he longed for her, and hearing upon her arrest, he cut all contact with me for several years. What was I supposed to do? She tried to steal from Mulctuary Money Management, and rather poorly, in order to strengthen her family’s fortune. Oh, as usual she pretended it was in order to gain some crucial asset in the name of VFD, but the Venerable Founding Dynasties have always considered the interests and funds of VFD and their own as rather indistinguishable. She got caught breaking into the vault because she was sloppy (and so old-fashioned. You want to rob a bank, you craft an elaborate financial product and get cracking). My part in her arrest was incidental. I refused to put myself at risk to help her escape, and I was right not to do so. But Olaf considered the full responsibility of her arrest was on me. He divided our forces at the very moment when the Snickets were making their moves to strengthen their power inside VFD, Kit trying to steal priceless sapphires (the same ones Quincy Quagmire would won in a rigged game of poker half a decade later), Lemony manipulating his chaperons and getting his hands on a way to control the Great Unknown, Jacques becoming a teacher at the Academy.

Olaf should have seen Kit for what she was at this moment, a product of her class, acting in the interests of her Family. But he decreed she was a damsel-in-distress and I the villain. By distributing the roles as such, he casted himself as the fool. Alas it wouldn't be the last time. But this first mistake of his cost him dearly. His efforts to free Kit made Lemony hate him even more, and he wasted time he should have used to prepare himself for the looming Schism. Instead he made the Schism a question of principles. He was one of its main initiators, and yet it caught him unprepared, unable to grab much of VFD's legacy. He found himself isolated and penniless, when the Snickets and the Baudelaires made sure they got everything they could out of VFD. Even on the fire-yielding sides, most of the people made sure they organized themselves to keep a part of VFD's resources, while Olaf lived by his extremist ethics of the untarnished revolutionary. A defining mistake that he would spend his life trying to fix, with his hopeless scheme to get control of the money stolen by Beatrice and Bertrand in order to fund its vision of how the new revolutionary and socially-conscious VFD should work.


End file.
